Juno Position & Status

View of Juno’s position on April 26 from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System.

[May 1 update: Juno’s mission ops team performed a flush of the spacecraft’s main engine on May 1, firing the engine for a couple of seconds. The team does this maintenance activity about once per year to flush contaminants out of the propellant lines that feed the main engine.]

As of April 26, Juno was approximately 52 million miles (84 million kilometers) from Earth. The one-way radio signal travel time between Earth and Juno is currently about 4.7 minutes. Juno is currently traveling at a velocity of about 15 miles (24 kilometers) per second relative to the sun. Velocity relative to Earth is about 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) per second.

Juno has now traveled 704 million miles since launch -- this is approximately 40 percent of the total distance the spacecraft travels between launch and orbit insertion at Jupiter.

The Juno spacecraft is in excellent health and is operating nominally. Four instruments -- JEDI, MWR, Waves, and MAG -- are turned on.

Juno is currently headed back toward the inner solar system for a planned Earth flyby gravity assist maneuver on Oct. 9, 2013. The Juno mission operations team is continuing their planning activities in advance of this critical maneuver. The gravity assist will give the spacecraft the boost it needs to reach Jupiter, where it is slated to arrive in July 2016.